Grinder for Breville Bambino and Bambino Plus: Six That Fit

Start with Breville's numbers. The Bambino and Bambino Plus both use a 54 mm portafilter, and Breville markets the Bambino with 18 g of coffee in it. The US instruction book gives the basket capacities: 8 to 11 g for the one-cup basket and 16 to 19 g for the two-cup. Both machines ship with single-wall and dual-wall baskets. Breville says single-wall baskets are for freshly ground beans, and dual-wall baskets are for pre-ground coffee because they regulate pressure regardless of grind or freshness.

So any grinder for Breville Bambino machines exists to make the single-wall basket usable. Breville's guidance on grind size is to go 'fine but not too fine': too fine and water will not flow, giving a dark, bitter, over-extracted shot; too coarse and it runs fast and tastes thin. Baratza gives a starting recipe of 18 g in and 36 g out in 25 to 32 seconds, going finer if the shot is sour and quick and coarser if it is bitter and slow. That 18 g dose sits inside the Bambino's 16 to 19 g basket.

Translate that into grinder specs and you get a short checklist. Each grinder in the table is measured against it.

Capacity is the other practical difference. The Smart Grinder Pro holds 18 oz of beans and the Encore ESP 300 g in its hopper, so both can be filled for a week. The Opus 2's 100 g load bin, the HiBREW G5's 50 g hopper and the Encore ESP Pro's single-dose mode (45 g without its hopper) are built for weighing beans in for each drink, which suits owners who keep more than one bag open. Neither approach is better for the Bambino; it depends on whether you want to weigh every dose.

Some popular grinders are the wrong grinder for Breville Bambino owners, and in two cases the maker says so. Fellow's page for the Ode Brew Grinder Gen 2 says it is 'designed for brewed coffee methods only' and that 'Ode is not intended for espresso'. Baratza positions the original Encore, which looks much like the Encore ESP, for filter brewing. Both are well made; neither is designed for the fine end a single-wall basket needs.

Watch the wording on general-purpose grinders too. OXO's listing for its Brew Conical Burr Grinder says its settings run 'from fine for espresso to coarse for French press', but the same listing's title names drip, French press and cold brew. Cuisinart's DBM-8 lists an 18-position selector spanning 'ultra-fine for espresso to extra-coarse'. With so few positions covering the whole range, each step is a large jump; compare that with the 20 espresso-only micro-steps on the Encore ESP.

Blade grinders are the other trap. They have no burr gap to set: fineness depends on how long you run the motor, so you cannot repeat a grind or make the small changes that dialling in requires. Forum threads show owners trying it anyway, including one titled 'First pull from Breville Bambino with Krups blade grinder'. If a blade grinder is all you have, use the dual-wall basket.

Burr shape is a smaller question than it looks. Every grinder on our shortlist uses conical burrs, from 40 mm on the Baratza and SHARDOR models to 48 mm on the Opus 2 and HiBREW G5. Flat-burr espresso grinders such as MiiCoffee's DF54 (54 mm) and DF64 II (64 mm) are sold for espresso too, with stepless adjustment and single dosing, per MiiCoffee's listings. For a Bambino, what matters first is that the maker supports espresso, the adjustment is fine enough, and the grounds reach a 54 mm portafilter cleanly.

Yes, and it is a common plan; one r/espresso thread is titled 'Can I get the bambino plus and wait with the grinder?'. Breville designed for it by putting dual-wall baskets in the box. Use them with pre-ground coffee and you get a consistent, forgiving shot while you save for a grinder. What you cannot do in the meantime is dial in: a pressurised basket evens out the changes you make.

When the grinder arrives, switch to the single-wall basket of the same size, start at the grinder's finest espresso range and work through Baratza's recipe. Expect to adjust several times with each new bag of beans, since grind size controls flow and extraction.

If your budget stretches to the Bambino Plus but not a grinder, the same plan applies. If you have about $500 in total, our best espresso machine under 500 page shows the split between machine and grinder in more detail.

The total cost of the plan is easy to work out from the bands. A Bambino at around $300 with the SHARDOR comes to about $370; with the Encore ESP, Smart Grinder Pro or Opus 2 it is about $500; with the Encore ESP Pro it is about $600. The Bambino Plus adds roughly $200 to each figure. Live prices on the cards above move daily, so check them before you settle on a pairing.

Once the grinder is set up, these steps follow the makers' own guidance. They assume the Bambino's single-wall two-cup basket and a scale.

Know when to go back to the dual-wall basket, too. If you run out of fresh beans and open a bag of pre-ground coffee, swap baskets for that bag rather than chasing the grind; Breville's guidance is that single-wall baskets are for freshly ground beans. And if a new grinder cannot reach a shot of about 25 seconds even at its finest espresso setting with fresh beans, that is the sign it is not fine enough for this machine, whatever its box says.

The matcher below is preset to the Breville Bambino with a grinder budget up to $300. It filters our grinder catalogue to models whose makers name espresso, shows how each one gets grounds into a 54 mm portafilter, and lists today's prices. The Bambino Plus shares the Bambino's portafilter and baskets, so the same grinders fit it.

If you might move to a 58 mm machine later, such as Breville's Dual Boiler or Oracle Jet, favour a grinder that handles both sizes: the Smart Grinder Pro's two cradles or the Opus 2's dual-size cup.

Fit on the counter matters as well, because the grinder usually sits beside the machine. Breville gives the Smart Grinder Pro as 8.5 in wide, 6.3 in deep and 15.3 in tall; Baratza gives the Encore ESP as 13 x 15 x 34 cm, about 5.1 in wide and 13.4 in tall; Fellow lists the Opus 2 at 10.5 in tall. The Bambino itself is 12.2 in tall, so under low wall cabinets the hopper grinders, at over 13 in, are the ones to measure for, especially with the hopper lid lifted.

Finally, think about the next machine. A separate grinder can stay when the machine changes, so if you can see yourself moving to a 58 mm machine, pick a grinder that already handles both sizes.